Break A Leg, But Not The Strike Line

Break A Leg, But Not The Strike Line

A suggestion for fans and viewers. Another way to support the WGA & SAG-AFTRA strike (and really, other guilds that surround the arts) is to check out your local art scene wherever you live if you haven't yet done so. A lot of talent from coast to coast in towns and cities small and large have theater productions of all types, independent productions (including cinema), children's theater, dance, and so on.

It is where the spark may be turned into a flame! From behind the scenes with sets, costumes, the list goes on and on. Watch, volunteer, have a blast, art is for you!

*I should add that I know stage production is different, but I'm going to plug all of it because writers/actors/costumers/ etc all get started someway, somehow, somewhere, and why not celebrate human creativity wherever and whoever you are?!

Please sir, I want some more...

When I hear the phrase "starving artist," I know exactly which word of the two I would like to make obsolete and it is not the writer, the painter, the actor, the costumer, the set designer, or any of the other workers and artists who labor to give us the material with which we can experience the range of human experience.

I want more of the original that comes from the human being with a beating heart and not an electrical plug; from eyes or ears that have seen, heard, and lived not from a metal and plastic box filled with phrases jumbled together all higglety-pigglety.

Technology has brought the world wonderful advancements but never lose sight of the human beings who arise each day to live, love, and labor together on this planet we call home.

Thank you for the tag @sincericida

Last song: Yellow by Cold Play; on loop to set a mood for a piece I was working on.

Currently watching: I have a queue of movies but have too much going on work related so behind on that. Lately, track & field because the world champs are coming up ...

Currently reading: The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes; related to the upcoming We Live In Time film in that the screenwriter for the film wrote a screenplay for a film based on the Barnes' novel.

Current obsession: Just one? Oh I cannot, but probably reading and writing fanfic, getting the fall seedlings started, and working my way through my booklists of nonfandom material.

Just for fun, here's an additional two that are dessert related:

Current favorite cake: Tres Leches (because it's a family favorite and somebody has to eat it so it doesn't spoil right? Right?)

Current favorite pie: Cherry, it's always cherry.

Tagging without pressure or furrowed brows: @periprose @blooming-violets @ficthots @p3mybeloved @rancidpancakebatter

9 people you'd like to get to know better

thanks for the tag @renmackree

last song: We Didn’t Start the Fire by Fall Out Boy; I’ve been obsessed with listening to the original and then this one as basically one big song

currently watching: Re-watching Teen Wolf

currently reading: How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

current obsession: Sterek is honestly the big thing right now since nothing is really happening in any of my other fandoms. I’m extremely late to the game and have over a decade’s worth of fics to catch up on. Non-Sterek: Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker, Spideydevil, and PeterSquared (Peter2/Peter3)

tag ur it (but only if ya wanna!): @sun-ni-day, @xxgothchatonxx, @counsellormurdock, @sincericida, @reidslovely, @amazingpetey, @sunwarmed-ash, @emperorsfoot, @stilesisderekslittlespoon

Studio Sour Grapes

83 years ago, 20th Century Studios (now 20th Century Fox) released the masterpiece, Grapes Of Wrath, based upon the best selling novel by *John Steinbeck. Here is a reminder that the struggle for labor, for content creators, for artists, for writers, for all of us to be seen and valued as human has been a long one. Outright slavery was replaced with other institutions and legal methods designed to marginalize and control specific groups and socioeconomic classes and further divide labor based on race, gender, etc. Those in the arts who tried to call attention to this never ending struggle were (and in some cases still are) labeled with slurs, blacklists, and so on.

The point I am trying to make is that while highlighting the experiences of a downtrodden group of people resulted in some absolutely fantastic written, filmed, acted, and directed artistic endeavors, those endeavors resulted from the hardship and plight of ordinary people and their situation was the result of the greed and antipathy of the 'corporate' owners. Across a multitude of industries and types of labor, the many have been at the mercy of the few. It's easy to vilify the highest paid celebrities and writers in order to sow division and obfuscate the reality for most workers in America, whether within the art industry itself or any other form of labor.

The producers and owners have tried to say that the grapes are sour, that the writers don't make good wine, that the actors have plenty of money to pay for healthcare (not true), and so on.

Don't believe them: feed them the grapes of wrath. Feed them the truth.

*Without getting into the weeds regarding the controversy surrounding Steinbeck's novel & the novel by Sanora Babb's Whose Names Are Unknown (do look it up on wiki; fascinating story), it serves as a tale and backdrop for some of the current topics being discussed right now with respect to appropriation, equal pay, gender, as well as the name, image, and likeness.

Because with a little imagination, one picture/video can tell more than one story...

Pretty girl who stole my heart.

The silly way I'm smiling for this...

Name, Image, and Likeness

SAG-AFTRA & WGA on strike ask viewers and fans to support them and I hope folks realize that this is not about a small percentage of wealthy celebrities but the overwhelming numbers of members who provide the meat and potatoes to the artistry we consume. It is reminiscent of athletes also having to fight to protect their own autonomy for the future in media and other representations.

Finally, it is also about the majority of labor across the country being used and abused in the past but especially right now and across multiple industries-- the top tier of society taking advantage of desperation felt by citizens who need to pay the bills, to eat, to provide care for others; the top tier changing laws to promote child labor, to destroy education that provides opportunity, to shoehorn the populace into categories that we didn't ask to be placed, to take away the right to take a water break in dangerous heat (Texas rescinded a mandatory water break law) at a time when workers are dying due to high temperatures. Those are just a few examples of the way workers and their families are abused and viewed by those in power that think of them as expendable, as weak, as easily replaced.

Power in numbers can provide a possible solution and in the coming days, I hope that others join in to show that human labor has value and it is time to value the human that provides that labor for the betterment of all.